Automated banking machines are known in the prior art. A common type of automated banking machine is an automated teller machine (ATM). ATMs may be used by individuals to receive cash from their accounts, to pay bills, to transfer cash between accounts, and to make deposits. Certain ATMs also enable customers to deposit checks, money orders, travelers checks, or other instruments. Such ATMs sometimes have the capability of creating an electronic image of a deposited instrument.
ATMs may also provide various types of sheets to customers. Such sheets include currency bills that customers withdraw from the machine. Customers may also receive sheet materials such as money orders, bank checks, scrip, stamps or other sheet materials stored in or produced by the machine. Customers may also receive from an ATM a printed sheet which is a receipt indicating the particulars of the transactions they have conducted at the machine. In addition customers may request and receive from some ATMs a more detailed statement of transactions conducted on their account.
Some ATMs have several different locations on the machine where sheets are received from or delivered to a customer. For example, most machines include one area for delivering cash to a customer and another area for receiving deposits. More than one deposit receiving area may also be provided for different types of deposits. For example, an ATM may have one opening for receiving envelope deposits, and a separate opening for receiving negotiable instruments, such as checks. ATMs may also have a particular area for delivering receipts to the customer. If the machine has the capability of printing a complete account statement on larger paper an additional area may be provided where statement sheets are delivered.
Having different areas on the customer interface of an ATM to receive and provide different types of sheets is required because each type of sheet is processed by a different mechanism within the machine. Each of these mechanisms has its own separate access to the customer. This makes machines with different features substantially different from other machines and adds complexity to their operation. Providing several different passageways and transports for receiving and providing sheet materials to customers also adds complexity and cost to a machine.
While the drawbacks associated with multiple sheet delivery and receiving openings is easily appreciated with regard to ATMs, other automated banking machines have similar drawbacks. For example the machines used by bank tellers to count currency received from customers are generally totally different machines than those used to dispense currency that is to be provided by the teller to a customer. Separate machines are also often provided for receiving and imaging checks and other types of negotiable instruments and documents of value. Often a separate terminal is provided to print a statement or record of a transaction for a customer.
Automated banking machines which accept documents such as currency notes are also becoming more common. In some such automated banking machines, a document such as a currency note may be received from a customer and assessed for validity by devices within the machine. If the presented note is determined to be valid, it may be stored in the machine and later dispensed to the same or another customer requesting to receive notes from the machine.
Such automated banking machines may occasionally receive invalid or suspect documents. When this occurs the document is generally rejected by the machine. In some circumstances it may be desirable in the case of a counterfeit document to remove the document from circulation and/or to identify the person presenting it for purposes of investigating the source of counterfeit documents. Also in some cases the documents presented may generally appear to be valid but do not meet the requirements for acceptance by the machine. However, even though such documents presented may most likely be valid, the machine may reject them because they do not meet all of the criteria set for an unequivocally valid document which is suitable to be accepted, stored and later dispensed by the machine.
Thus there exists a need for an automated banking machine and system that has the capability of receiving and dispensing documents such as notes, which has the capability of accepting and identifying invalid and suspect notes, which is capable of providing information that may be used to identify and preserve such notes and which provides the ability to contact the entity responsible for presenting the notes to the machine.